Jacksonville, Fla. – If you want to know who’s going to win the Florida primary, give me a call Saturday afternoon. I’ll be glad to tell you then. I could tell you now, of course, but then I’d just be blowing smoke along with the rest of the media. This race will break late and break hard — later and harder, possibly, than even the South Carolina primary did.
What I can tell you today is what this election is going to be about. The 2012 Florida primary will be an old-fashioned family feud pitting conservatives against Republicans. It’s a feud with deep, 1964-vintage roots, but it’s not about old grudges misremembered or long-forgotten. Next Tuesday’s vote will be a referendum on what happened here and elsewhere around the nation in 2010.
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In that bountiful year, you’ll fondly recall, disgruntled conservatives leapt from the soft shoulders, grabbed the wheel of the party’s wandering bus, and whipped it hard right. The party people were at first outraged — you’ve just cost us the services of Mike Castle, for God’s sake! — before developing a sober (and ephemeral) gratitude for the infusion of conservative energy. Almost immediately following Election Day, however, the systematic restoration of party prerogative began. Messrs. John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, who had seemed to be tea-party when tea-party was cool, banked their revolutionary fires; Karl Rove, for a time doubted and (even more painfully) ignored, was reinstated to his architectural role; and the party people quickly selected their candidate for 2012. To avoid any intramural frottage, in fact, they helpfully declared their candidate “inevitable” before a single delegate had been won. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your Inevitable GOP Candidate: a formerly pro-choice, anti-gun, pro-amnesty, pro-individual-mandate, one-term governor of Massachusetts who has stashed part of his unimaginably large paper-shuffling profits — the part that he didn’t stash with Goldman Sachs — in a bank in the Cayman Islands. Who, I ask you, could possibly be more inevitable than he?
It is difficult to convey to NR readers, much less to New York Times readers, just how astonished and annoyed the grassroots activists in Florida are. These are not people who hold party posts or are on Larry Sabato’s Rolodex as potential sources. They are the people who dropped what they were doing in 2010 and dashed off to the aid of their party in its hour of manifest need. They restored order to the public square, imposed clarity on the party message, sent a human wave of self-declared reformers to Tallahassee and Washington, and then said, with a sigh of relief, “There. You guys can take it from here. We’re going home.” To then watch their new heroes acquiesce in the selection (appointment?) of Mitt Romney as their party’s inevitable candidate has been more than many conservative activists can bear. (A typical quote about Romney from a local hyper-activist: “I don’t have the time for him. If he were president, we’d have to mobilize for every appointment, every regulation, every agenda item. He thinks of us the way old man Bush did — as them.”)
These sturdy people, these conservative yeomen, are now voting for Newt Gingrich. Well, to be more precise, they are voting for the idea of Newt Gingrich: They are voting not for a specific candidate, as such, but for the process that produced him. They want to see that process attenuated. They want to hear the arguments refined and developed. They want to match up their man with this historical moment. Their fundamental question reduces to this: Just where is our beloved country in the arc of history? Does the present circumstance call for minor course correction, and thus the nomination of a skilled if incorrigibly establishmentarian manager? Or is it late in the American day when only a risk-embracing, cliché-busting, paradigm-shaking candidate will suffice? Many Florida activists have gravitated to the latter view and have thus embraced Newt as a placeholder who will allow them to participate in the next phase of the process. They support him as a man whose baggage can be left unexamined precisely because he can wave a golden passport at the border guards: It is well known to the authorities that he has committed multiple acts of political revolution before and he seems altogether capable of committing additional such acts in the future. Revolutionary acts, they sense, may be exactly what’s needed in this moment of crisis.
The Republican establishment (and NR) is doing everything it can to push Romney. As a conservative, I'm fed up with the establishment (and NR). If Romney continues to be coddled by the party, I'll no longer be a Republican. As for NR, I've already tried to cancel my 20+ year subscription, but they ignore my email messages. I'm going to send them a snail mail letter soon. They will never get another penny from me.
Either the Republican party will move to the right, or the right will leave the Republican party. Time will tell.
The GOP and NR will miss you. Good luck building electoral majorities with one-third of the electorate. But hey, at least your candidates will be "pure conservatives" right? Oh, wait. Gingrich is your candidate. As in Nancy Pelosi's "conservative" couch buddy in the fight against man-made climate change (odd aside: Newt's changing position on global warming = a conversion. Romney's change on abortion = a flip-flop. See the advantages of not being the establishment candidate?). Well, at least, er... at least Romney won't be President, right? It will be such a relief to re-elect Obama. Again, good luck and God speed.
Here’s a poorly kept secret – there really is no “GOP Establishment” anymore. Instead, about 25% of the GOP base favors Romney, portions of the base support other candidates, and the rest are vacillating their support among several other candidates before they commit. There is no super-secret smoke filled room filled with THE ESTABLISHMENT conspiring to foist their favored candidate on TRUE CONSERVATIVES, and if there was they certainly would not have picked Romney. We have a two party system, there will never be a Right party like you want, this is as good as it gets.
The bottom line is that Romney really wants to be President, has invested more time and effort than any other candidate into that obsessive goal, and the other candidates were terrible. It’s like the guy who keeps asking a girl to the prom, she keeps turning him down, but prom is fast approaching and she still doesn’t have a date, so she sighs and goes with him even though she doesn’t really “like” him, because he’s the best guy who asked her.
If you want to believe in some Establishment conspiracy, then knock yourself out, but it’s not going to make it reality.
About two months ago, Georgette Mossbacher, the Finance Chairman of the RNC, told a reporter, "We've already decided that Romney will be the nominee." No establishment?Jon Conryn, former head of the NRSC, decided, eighteen months in advance of the 2010 Florida primary, that the party would back Charlie Crist against Marco Rubio. No establishment? Are you kidding me? (Conryn was forced to back down by the grass-roots "Not one red cent" movement.)
Every non-Romney had to face the fact that not only would Romney have the most money, he'd also have the party machinery working to back him. I wonder how many of our best candidates looked at those odds, and decided they'd be better off waiting for another election cycle.
My vote goes to "comments from DAH!" American conservatives are well aware that the good old boy GOP establishment "Romney-for-President" cheerleading squad is made up of bogus conservative media hacks and politicians, i.e., NR, FOX news, Ann Coulter, Chris Christie, Brit Hume, sitting Congressional mindless nit wits who mistakenly believe their endorsements matter. I have come to detest the Romney brand with everybit as much vitriol as I have for the Obama brand. Romney is over-talked, over exposed, over estimated, and over endorsed. He translates as a puppet, a wimp, and a people pleaser of the "in crowd." He can have the "in crowd" and the "in crowd" can have him. Birds of a feather DO flock together. If only the flock could manage to exit the barnyard by rising above ground level--inspite of all the wing flapping and screeching they've been doing.
"With Newt installed as the placeholder, attention will then begin to drift again, first perhaps to Rick Santorum or Mitch Daniels, and then to Bobby Jindal and Chris Christie and, at least for a long moment, to Paul Ryan."
If Obamacare repeal fails by one vote, it will be people like Mr. Freeman who are to blame. The internal war that he fuels makes the Republican party more Conservative, but because the loser he backs don't win, he makes Government more liberal.
If I recall in 2008 Romney was endorsed by Jim DeMint and Rick Santorum, Rush Limbaugh called him the the candidates that represents "all three legs of the Conservative stool", Laura Ingraham called him a "Conservative's Conservative" and Mark Levin said wrote an article for National Review saying we should "Rally Around Romney". The funny thing is he hasn't moved to the left since then, and if you look at his policy proposals and his stances on issues he is to right of Gingrich.
Also the most right-wing thing about Gingrich is his choice of adjectives, he talks in a way that makes people think he is some hard right-wing Conservative. That is what people are responding to, his attacks on Obama and the media, not his policies which are the closest ideologically to Obama of the remaining candidates (with the exception of Paul on some foreign policy matters). If you look at his policy proposals, his odd infatuation with the Roosevelts and Wilson, and how he answers questions on how to deal with poverty it is clear that he is not Conservative at his core even though it would have been really easy for him to be one given the very Conservative district he represented in Congress he did not have to pander to independents or Democrats to win elections.
It is true that with Newt it is more the idea of than the substance. My main qualm with Romney is the same as it is with Obama; support for the redefining of words in an effort to lend an appearance of acceptability to sexual depravity – SSM; rather, Marriage Corruption.
I know marriage corruption to be a full frontal assault on the 1st Amendment, these truths we hold to be self evident, the laws of nature and natures God, in short, the very source of our freedom; a special kind of treason that must be answered in no uncertain terms.
You cannot legislate the absolution of your sins.
The transfer of jobs overseas is part and parcel of the NWO. Newt knows this trend can be revearsed over night with the end of Government support of said offense - as it was under Clinton.
Conflict and distraction as usual with the "mainstream" propaganda machine orchestrating the circus while the banksters carry on with their agenda of endless war, impossible debt and a total police state.
If Gingrich is successful in Florida, and that brings forth a better candidate to run for President, all well and good. But what if no one steps forward and your stuck with Gringrich as the nominee? You'll have handed President Obama his reelection, perhaps the House too, and surely the Supreme Court for decades. Are you still ready to roll those dice? Cordially, Bill
Although I am a Romney supporter, I understand the hesitation many conservatives have re Mitt. What I do NOT understand is the fascination so many on the right have with the fatally flawed Mr. Gingrich. It is not an establishment hatchet job to point out his very real shortcomings and that he is not noticeably more conservative than Mr. Romney.
I am a great admirer of the former Speaker, not least for his accomplishments in dismantling the "permanent" Democratic House majority in the 1990s, but you are deluding yourself, Mr. Freeman, if you think that Newt is either more conservative than Mitt Romney and/or that he is cut from presidential timber.
As many pundits of all political stripes have noted--apparently to little effect--there is scant difference in the policy positions between Newt and Mitt. The greater differences, by far, are the differences in rhetoric, temperament, and in managerial competence. People say that Romney has the soul of an accountant and they mean that as a put down. I, for one, take that as a plus. Romney gets remarkably little credit for his impressive track record of managerial success in and out of government and in multiple private sector endeavors. Conservatives, myself included, deride Obama supporters who were seduced by Obama's lofty, but ultimately hollow, rhetoric. But now, when given a chance to nominate a serious challenger to the left's windbag we are putting a premium on...lofty rhetoric.
This week it was reported that Newt told a Florida audience that by the end of his second term there would be a permanent American settlement on the moon, and that at some point said settlement might even petition for statehood. I'm sorry, but I can't see that as a vote-winner. If Romney is indeed too bloodless and boring, nominating a candidate who talks about statehood for the moon is not my idea of an antidote.
I would like to see Gingrich debate President Obama. I admit that there is a real appeal to Newt's "Lincoln-Douglas" debate challenge. But I recognize that the red-meat applause lines that have helped Newt surge against Romney will not be an aid in persuading the median American voter to pull the lever for him. (Also, let's not forget who won the election following the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Hint: It wasn't Honest Abe).
Finally, conservatives do a real disservice to our cause when they blithely gloss over Newt's appalling marriage track record. No, it should not be the only factor, and no, it should not ipso facto disqualify a candidate. However, given how close Romney and Gingrich are on policy, this has got to be an edge for Romney with the serious conservative voter. Newt will be (rightly) perceived as a hypocrite if he tries to advance social conservative goals. Romney, on the other hand, will provide a sterling example of family values (just as, as Gov. Daniels pointed out in his STOU rebuttal, President Obama does), even apart from whatever conservative initiatives he undertakes.
Forgiveness? This is the refuge of a scoundrel. It is not for me, as a voter, to "forgive" Newt Gingrich. That is for his ex-wives. I view his failed marriages (and, more importantly, his affairs while married) as matters reflecting on his judgment. Those indiscretions betray an appetite that overrides reason and a temperament that is anything but conservative.
I'll take the bloodless businessman who married his high school sweetheart and knows how to manage a bureaucracy and focus on the bottom line over a self-loving windbag any day.
It *might* be worth nominating a "real conservative" over the decidedly moderate Mr. Romney, even if it was at the cost of turning off some moderate voters (I said "might" because I'm convinced I'd rather have a center-right President than four more years of Obama) but it makes no sense--not strategically, and not for reasons of ideological purity--to nominate one RINO over another just because said RINO is an obnoxious windbag who has a penchant for saying bombastic things that conservatives love to hear but that drive libs and moderates bonkers. Newt is electoral poison. It'd be one thing to risk our hopes of defeating Obama on him if he were a principled conservative--but it is suicide to throw our opportunity away on a washed up pol with the same policy positions as our less ego-maniacal, less baggage-laden "establishment" candidate.
Unfortunately for us, Newt is actually a true fit for a significant number in our party. It pains me, but it does explain SC. For example, Newt's racial undertones in the exchange with Juan Williams earned loud applause. Newt is a true rabble-rouser, who stirred up the prejudices of voters in SC. As Republicans, this was a shameful and embarrassing moment for us.
And sadly, many voters in our party do not place a very high premium on integrity, truth-telling, or morality. They want their bombast, even if it means losing with am ethically-challenged narcissist.
It is our good fortune, that Romney has been able to recover from the loss in SC and is now favored to win FL. He turned in a magnificent performance last night, just in the nick of time.
I truly hope Freeman is right, about someone else showing up. I see most of the criticism of Newt as valid; of those still in, I'd take Santorum. And to the extent I am anti-Romney, it is something which arose during the campaign. All the pro-Romney arguments carry weight with me, except for one thing: I don't believe he can win. I look at him, and see Tom Dewey and Bob Dole. His inability to put together a winning coalition within the party makes me very nervous. Had he done so, I'd feel much better about supporting him.
Newt, OTOH, is at least a fighter. That is in fact why he's in the running today, otherwise he'd have disappeared by now. His nomination would not be a great moment for conservatism, and it might mean either a win or a lose in Nov; it's a dicey proposition; it'd be a wide open campaign.
I do wish my fellow rightists would stop whining about "the establishment", "RINO'S", etc. The reason we are not getting a solid & strong conservative candidate is that none has come forward. Post Reagan, every one pushed as such has turned into a dud, for one reason or another. NRO, like everyone else, has to make the most of the hand we are dealt. And Mitt is NOT John Linsay. If he were more saleable than dandruff, I'd be happy to see him win, under the circs. But he's not.
And there's an end to it, as Dr Johnson would say.
Even though, Republicans want to view the Bain Company as capitalism at its best; I seriously doubt most average voters will think making billions of dollars in profit at the expense of closing small town manufacturing companies is anything but capitalism at its worst. Average voters will not vote for a rich elite millionaire over President O’bama. If I have to choose between someone who knows how to fight to get a job done or someone who pretends to be something he is not, then my choice is obviousAmericans, regardless of party, will vote for Gingrich over Romney and President O’bama because he stands for ideas and results at a time when both parties have.failed the American public. (External Link)
Romney doesn't know how much his company profited at the expense of manufacturing companies, how or where his money is invested, or the contents of an ad he approved. It makes me wonder if he will know what or who is responsible for decisions he would make as President. Oh wait, that will be the Washington establishment. Personally, I am tired of trusting the blind leading the blind.
Unfortunely, when you have the media and established elite constantly bombarding you with character assassinations, it is difficult to run a passionate campaign.
Of *course* there's a GOP establishment, and it acts just like described in this article. Here in Florida, I can identify the members with ease. Anyone could after a small period of familiarity. It's as plain as the nose on your face.
We've just seen a 48 hour carpet bombing of Newt from the *Right*. Newt survives, but if Romney is subjected to a fraction of this stuff by the Alinsky machine, should he win the nomination, he has no chance to survive it. None. He'll be gone and Obama wins handily. In a Class Warfare battle, Romney's gone before even firing a shot.
Romney is a sure, total loser to Obama. Gingrich, backed by the Tea Party and by people who've awakened at the last minute and realize that their America is about to be shoved off the cliff, have a good shot.
And that's your choice: total loss with Romney or a chance to win with Newt.
When Romney loses, where will the republican party be then? And, more importantly, where will the country be then? Can we survive 4 more years of Marxist rule?
And will the Tea Party register as a political party any time soon?!?
Gingrich is a sure, total loser to Obama (or Kucinich). But Ronald Reagan circa 1984 would lose to Obama too. Anyone the Republicans put up will lose. That's just the way it is. That's why nobody on anyone's top 10 list of candidates (except Ron Paul) even entered the fray (not that any of the bench sitters are that inspiring either -- they're mostly just unproven.)
The important point to think here is strategy. Given the fact that Obama will be re-elected, what should Republicans do? Certainly not destroy the party, alienating social conservatives and moderates by nominating Gingrich.
Should Republicans nominate Romney? He's certainly not inspiring, he won't fire up the base, and evangelical Christians will boycott a Mormon nominee -- but he's likely willing to spend his own (or at least less party) money. He won't alienate social conservatives or fiscal conservatives (every president since Roe v. Wade has supported abortion, including Reagan.)
The party could do worse than nominate a bland, uninspiring placeholder until Obama is no longer running for re-election (and several of the first tier candidates have had a chance to prove themselves.) The risk though is with a weak presidential ticket, will Republicans turn out in sufficient numbers to retake the Senate and increase their numbers in the House?
I don't know. They'd need another Palin (not the same one) as VP nominee.
